


Under the Cherry Tree

by Sarai



Category: Six of Crows Series - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family, Grief/Mourning, Post-Book 2: Crooked Kingdom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-04
Updated: 2020-05-04
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:34:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23993116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sarai/pseuds/Sarai
Summary: When Jesper visits his father in Novyi Zem, they have a long-overdue conversation about the shared grief they both still carry and Jesper learns about pieces of Colm's past that have impacted them both.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 21





	Under the Cherry Tree

Jesper told himself things just worked out that way.

 _Things just worked out that way_ – he needed to be sure Wylan was settled. (Never mind that Wylan had been saying, “I’m all right, Jes, you should visit Colm,” for months. Like the merchling knew anything about anything!)

 _Things just worked out that way_ – Inej had stayed with them, briefly, then come home from her first voyage on her new ship. Of course he knew she saw Kaz first, but at the end of the day, even the Wraith liked a good meal and a soft bed. (“I’m so proud of you,” they had chorused, Jesper to the righteous pirate, Inej to the months-sober sharpshooter.)

_Things just worked out that way…_

Six months had passed since Colm Fahey left Ketterdam. Six months and his son was finally paying a visit.

He let himself into the house, surprised by how different it felt. Wasn’t he returning home? Somehow Jesper was surprised to find it wholly unchanged. He felt like he had stepped back into his memories, the same place but the wrong time. It had only been two years, but all that had changed was Jesper. He no longer fit the shape of the space he left behind.

Jesper shook his head. What was that nonsense? Banishing the inexplicable gasp of melancholy, he set down his bag and left the little clapboard house. Briefly, Jesper glanced at the cherry tree. Then he headed out to the western field. His da would’ve spotted him, if he had looked. If he had known to look. As it was, Colm was so engaged in his work he only noticed when Jesper was nearly beside him.

Then Colm about leapt a foot off the ground.

“Jes!” He grinned and, like he had in the Boeksplein, hugged his son tightly.

This time, there was no relief in his eyes. He was happy, surprised, but he hadn’t been worried. It felt nice and painful at the same time. Jesper felt that way a lot lately. He was proud of his successes, but aware they were defined by his failures.

All the same, Jesper didn’t mind having the breath hugged out of him.

“I missed you, too, Da,” he wheezed.

Jesper hadn’t been in Ketterdam a month before his sensible, well-patched farmboy clothing was long forgotten. Most of his things he left behind at the university and never thought to go back for them. He hadn’t worn drab colors voluntarily ever since. When he clarified precisely what he expected he’d be doing, Wylan had asked, “Are you going to get new clothes for the trip?” He did that sometimes. He said something that reminded Jesper what a privileged life he had led. Times like that, it was tough not to tease him. So Jesper had teased him.

The Faheys worked together until the sun dipped low to the horizon. Jesper hadn’t done this sort of work in years, but his body remembered. This had been his life for years. The familiar old rhythms were comforting at first. Then his mind began to wander. Hard work wasn’t the same is interesting work—but he was needed here. Useful. And he was better, he reminded himself.

It was worth it when they stopped for the evening. The smile Colm gave Jesper was worth everything.

For the best part of a week, they worked together. They didn’t talk much. Colm would offer the occasional, “All right, Jes?” or “It’s good to have you here.” Sometimes, Jesper’s attention wandered back to the cherry tree, but there was work to be done. And that was that.

One morning, Jesper’s eyes drifted open, his mind scratching at the reality surrounding them. It was late—not so late at home with Wylan, but by farm standards, they were wasting daylight. Why had Colm let him sleep? Then Jesper realized it must be Sunday. Colm had gone to church. More, he had left Jesper behind. Colm Fahey was a religious man whose previous attitude was that when you lived under his roof, you showed respect to the Saints, and that didn’t just mean swearing by them.

Jesper stretched, wriggled his toes, and decided he might as well get up. Might as well make himself useful—maybe he didn’t live here, but he wasn’t a guest, either. He made the bed. There was a trick he had learned, one his ma used to do. He pulled the dirt away from clothes with his gift. Everything still needed a wash, but not so desperately, enough for Jesper to have everything clean and hung out to dry in short time. He made biscuits without burning them and swept up while they baked.

After making a few twitchy rounds of the house, resettling things, struggling to busy himself, Jesper swallowed and took a breath. _Breathe. It’s all right. I’m here._ Only Wylan _wasn’t_ there, and this was something Jesper needed to do for himself.

He left the house. It was an almost cruelly beautiful day, a breeze slicing through the blistering heat, the sky an unfathomably deep blue. Laundry hung on the line, half-dry already. The fields were swiftly becoming bare. Jesper took pride in that. He took pride in how much work they had done together. Though he had no desire to stay on the farm, knew he was destined for grander things, this place would always hold his heart. There had been a time this was all the world he thought there was to know. His childhood had been here. His da was here.

Jesper stopped under the cherry tree. It was a healthy tree, its leaves glossy-green.

He couldn’t remember precisely the right spot and shuffled back. He didn’t want to stand on… on the wrong place.

He stuffed his hands in his pockets. Then took one out to rub his neck, then his nose was itchy. He ran a hand over his hair. Bounced a Kerch penny across his knuckles. He squatted close to the ground like somehow being five feet closer would answer all his questions. Or at least tell him which ones to ask.

Jesper was standing once more, staring at the ground in something like confusion, when Colm joined him.

They stood together quietly for a few moments.

“She’d’ve been proud.”

“That’s why Wy says.” Jesper hadn’t made much mention of his boyfriend on this trip, but it was true. Whenever Jesper couldn’t help saying a word about his ma, that was what Wylan said. She would be proud. Really? She would be proud her only son went a whole six weeks without a slip-up visit to the tables? She would be proud he was so confused about his gift that he spent years hiding it, even after he became sick with the effort?

“He’s a good lad.”

He was. Sometimes Jesper couldn’t decide if he wanted Wylan to stay as kind and good-hearted as he was, or tarnish himself to be just a little easier to reach. 

“Jes, I… what happened that night…”

They were not talking about the Geldrenner anymore. Colm’s voice had changed, become laced with quiet hurt, and he was looking at the ground beneath the cherry tree. Jesper realized they were standing just where they had that day.

_Was Ma a witch?_

He had needed to understand. Before, there was no call. Ma was Ma. But now Ma was gone, she was ideas and memories. A person needed to understand ideas.

Colm cleared his throat but couldn’t find the words.

So Jesper found his. “I know,” he said. “I know it was my fault, Da.”

Jesper remembered the words he had sobbed out too many times in the pain stirred up by Fabrikator training. _I should have known. I should have saved her._ And every time, Wylan held him, rubbed his back, promised that this wasn’t Jesper’s fault.

Wasn’t it? Ma used her gift to save someone’s life. Jesper could barely manage the wash. His tiny spark of magic wasn’t much, but it would have been enough. If he had been trained, it would have been. Every bit he learned now reminded him of what he hadn’t been able to do.

“Your fault?” Colm asked, genuinely surprised.

“Ma was…” Jesper rubbed the back of his neck. It had been a secret all this time—or just unspoken, for all the difference that made in the end. “Ma was teaching me. I didn’t know what it meant. She didn’t want to worry you with it, but if I had understood, if I had been more serious and not just wanted to shoot because it was fun—”

“You were a child,” Colm interrupted. He sounded almost angry.

Life afforded the luxury to precious few.

“You know what I was,” Jesper said. “What I am.”

Colm nodded. “Grisha.” They both knew, but the word needed saying just the same. “You were still a child.”

Jesper swallowed painfully. It had been Colm who banished those words from the house, Colm who insisted the only way Jesper could be safe was to be _not that_. Jesper remembered the day Leoni’s father offered to take him to train somewhere else. He had decided to stay to be with his father, even knowing…

The words were out before Jesper could stop them: “I didn’t think I could be Grisha and still be your son.” Not resentful, just a fact.

Colm’s head snapped up. “Jesper!”

“I know you changed your mind since then, but you didn’t want me to be that way.”

“I wanted you safe. I—” He cut himself off. Ran a hand through his graying hair. “I made mistakes, but you will always be my son. What happened to your mother was not your fault.”

Jesper nodded. He wanted to say it wasn’t true, but he only wanted to say that because he heard pain in his da’s voice. He didn’t want to say it because he believed it. He didn’t believe it. It didn’t mean Jesper loved him any less, but he knew his da made mistakes.

They stood for a long, quiet moment, both thinking their weighty thoughts. The truth was, Colm’s response to Grisha power—to Jesper’s and Aditi’s both—had shaped Jesper’s early adult years. It was Colm’s fear that made Jesper hide what he could do. Maybe it made him more susceptible not just to the dice and the cards, but to someone like Kaz, who could draw him into a thrilling world where Jesper never truly belonged.

He accepted his own responsibility, too. Another gusting breeze blew the worst of the afternoon heat off him, but it couldn’t assuage the gnawing shame. Maybe the wound had made him more susceptible to temptations, but all too often, he hadn’t even tried to resist them. Jesper accepted that as he stood there, looking at the patch of grass where his ma rested. For all Colm had failed in the small things, he hadn’t, not overall. He had loved his son. He forgave him in Ketterdam, had come out here to stand with him beside the cherry tree.

“I’m the youngest of the five of us.”

Jesper turned to his father in surprise. The youngest? The five of who?

“I never counted Meirion, he died too young, but my parents did. I didn’t understand it until I had you. You’ve an uncle, my brother Pryderi. Still works the old farm, as far as I know.”

Jesper’s eyes might as well have dropped out of his skull. He caught himself gaping and closed his mouth, but… still! He had never thought much of his father’s life Before. Before Ma, Before Novyi Zem, just in all the Before. He all but believed Colm Fahey sprung up a grown man and had no childhood at all. Who could imagine Colm as a child, playing tricks or at his studies or chasing after girls?

With an almost confused shake of his head, Colm said, “You must’ve known I had a reason to leave the Wandering Isle.”

“I thought you killed a guy and were fleeing the authorities,” Jesper replied without thinking. When it doubt, aim for a laugh. Unable to deny his curiosity, he asked, “So one’s dead and one inherited your father’s farm. What do my other uncles do? Do I have cousins?”

“Pryderi’s got two sons and a daughter. Gruff was like you. Gruffud, but we called him Gruff.” Colm ran a hand through his hair again. Jesper saw the pain in his father’s face and knew he ought to say he didn’t need to know. But… he did. And he sensed if he didn’t listen now, he’d never learn. “Gruff and Glyndwr were twins. Glyn was like the rest of us, but Gruff was a healer. My brother never meant any harm to anyone. He was as kind a soul as ever lived.”

Jesper suspected exaggeration, but he had a guess now where this brother was. In case he was right, he did not challenge his father’s claim. Something tingling on the edge of numbness coursed through him.

In a story, Jesper thought, the protagonist would stand still in shock and respect. Jesper wished for his revolvers and bounced a penny over his knuckles.

“The Kaelish believe—not me. And he should’ve known better. I was a little younger than you are now. He wasn’t yet twenty. The Kaelish believe people like you are something not human, something fae. It wasn’t out of hate. They… Saints, you don’t need to hear this.”

Jesper thought of what he had seen in Fjerda. He never told his da the full truth about that, this time not out of shame, but fear it would give the man a heart attack. He thought of the gruesome banner of red, blue, and purple kefta scraps; the charred corpses, and the one who hadn’t been a corpse yet; he thought of the kherguud, twisted past human. They weren’t memories he liked to carry, but he didn’t know that he could be whole without knowing the truth.

“I think I do need to hear it, Da,” he said. “It’s my history.”

Colm nodded. “All right. All right, then. They bled him. It’s what they do in the Wandering Isle—what some do. They believe Grisha blood can—they’re old folk with old ways, Jes. He wasn’t even twenty, my brother. Kindest man you could ever meet. Shy. When I saw what you were, I saw him again. I saw you in his place.”

Jesper remembered then something he had all but forgotten before. That night, he never forgot the way his da shouted at him. What he did forget, until now, was Colm sitting up with his rifle. _In case someone came for me_ , he realized. 

“I thought I was protecting you,” Colm continued, “you and your ma both. As though she ever needed my protection. I should’ve known the best I could do to protect you was let you be as strong as the Saints made you.”

“Da.”

In Ketterdam, Jesper had seen his da through different eyes. He had seen him in the Boeksplein and thought he looked like an obvious pigeon. He had seen him look so aged and so, so weary in the Ketterdam Suite.

For the first time now, not only did he see his father differently, Jesper saw himself differently. Instead of cracking some dumb joke, he just stepped over and put his arms around Colm. Not only was Colm vulnerable, Jesper was someone who could comfort him.

“It’s not your fault, either,” Jesper said. “Not your brother and not Ma.”

It was just uncanny, knowing that Colm felt what Jesper did, that they both looked at this tragedy and found some way to make it their own work. He didn’t think he could absolve his da without absolving himself. Since he couldn’t let his da hurt, he didn’t see any choice.

Anyway, it was what Ma would’ve wanted.


End file.
